


At Death’s Door

by SmartKIN



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Magical Realism, Non-Linear Narrative, POV Alternating, Past Accidental Drug Overdose, Past Drug Addiction, Personification of Death, Suicidal Thoughts, Tense Shift
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-27
Updated: 2016-08-27
Packaged: 2018-08-11 08:24:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,840
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7883821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SmartKIN/pseuds/SmartKIN
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In Afghanistan, John begs God to let him live, but it’s Death who answers his prayer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	At Death’s Door

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thewileywindymoors](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thewileywindymoors/gifts).



> Very belated birthday gift for my dearest Laura! Hope you like it! And the lovely [inexplicablyfandom-ish](http://inexplicablyfandom-ish.tumblr.com/) agreed to be my beta for this fic – thank you so much! <3 All remaining mistakes are my own~

When the bullet rips through his shoulder, his entire world shatters into thousands of shards of white, hot pain. His knees give out and he sinks to the ground, barely protected by the low wall of spidery shrubs and hastily assembled brick. Gun fire seems to come from all directions at once, but he pays it no mind—his heavy gear drags him down and when he finally collapses onto the dry, scorching sand it’s almost a relief that he no longer has to struggle against gravity. Hands reach for him, pull at him, but all he can focus on is biting down on the soaring pain.

 _Please, God, let me live_.

Rough hands patch him up, but even now he can tell that his treatment is sloppily executed by soldiers who have other concerns, like not getting shot themselves. By the time he’s carted off to the make-shift medical wing – a row of standard-issue tents – he is just one of many who need medical attention, and now there is one less doctor to help them. It’s no surprise when the fever finally sets in.

_Please, please…_

The thin veil between dream and reality starts to dissolve in those hours, he isn’t able to tell if he’s hallucinating or seeing clearly for the very first time in his life, wonders if pain is the only truth he will ever know.

He starts to ramble when the fever spikes, his voice nothing more than a high-pitched whisper, and his tattered prayers grow silent when his mind is pulled under, but the words, _the words_ , live on inside his head, booming, echoing. Never ending.

_Please…_

When his heart finally gives out, there is a sudden voice in his head, a whisper so silky and treacherous, as if it alone can douse the flames.

WHAT ARE YOU WILLING TO DO IN EXCHANGE FOR YOUR LIFE?

 _Anything_ , his mind murmurs, lips long since stilled.

ANYTHING? the voice demands.

_Yes, yes, anything…_

There is a moment of silence, a big yawning nothingness stretching on forever, in which he almost forgets that he has ever existed at all.

Then, the voice returns, like the tide rolling into the harbor.

YOU WILL BEAR WITNESS, it tells him, TO THE DEATH OF THE SOULS FORCED TO DEPART BEFORE THEIR TIME. YOUR ATTESTATION WILL CARRY THEM OVER.

Before he has time to agree, the pain returns, shorting out any thought he may have had.

When John Watson wakes up several days later, he finds himself in a proper hospital bed, white curtains half-drawn to give him some privacy from the pained moans to his left and right. A medical wing, filled with the victims of war.

If he remembers the strange voice during those days, he dismisses it instantly as a particularly creative hallucination. He’s never had an active imagination before this point, not even as a child playing with his sister’s dolls and his own toy soldiers, preferring to reenact the stories he’s seen on the telly rather than making up his own, but delirium does strange things to a person’s psyche.

He should not have read all those H.P. Lovecraft paperbacks that Corporal Marks used to lend him.

It was nothing more than a fever dream, he tells himself even as he skims his own medical records and realizes that he’s been clinically dead for hours.

Impossible.

A couple of minutes, sure, but hours?

He remembers that their camp was in a state of utter chaos on _that_ day, somebody must have made a mistake and noted down the wrong time of death.

There is no such thing as miracles.

Back in London, John forgets all about the dream amidst rehab, dodging Harry’s calls, moving into a shitty flat and dragging his feet during therapy.

He forgets, because nothing happened.

*

The man was back.

At this point, Sherlock had expected it. It was a crime scene, he had been asked to consult, therefore it was only natural that the man would be here too, waiting behind the police tape with all the other gawking spectators.

As he surveyed the assembled officers and inadvertently learned more about their day than he had ever wanted to know; as he noticed the broken flower stalks in one of the ceramic pots lining the house front (breaking the fall of the murder weapon? favorite spot of a stray cat?) and the scuff marks around the lock of the front door (fake, too erratically placed), he let himself consider the familiar stranger.

The man didn’t turn up at every crime scene, only homicides, and while Sherlock was often asked to consult during murder investigations, he preferred the mental exercise of a clever white collar crime, or even those cases that might, from the standpoint of the law, not even be considered a felony, but puzzled his clients enough to seek him out. Sherlock was sure, however, that the man had never followed him to the scene of even the most notorious of larceny cases.

It was unlikely, then, that he was a stalker. Unless it was an attempt in obfuscating his intentions. But a man who was apt enough to effectively stalk Sherlock Holmes would most likely be better at covering his tracks, too.

So, not a stalker.

It had once occurred to him that the stranger could be the force behind all these seemingly disparate crimes. He wouldn’t be the first nondescript criminal to come across his path, but Sherlock had dismissed this thought as ludicrous.

The crimes he had investigated were too disconnected to lead back to a single perpetrator, had come together in a way that left the expected amount of loose ends (on the side of evidence), but had made satisfying court cases nonetheless (not that Sherlock paid much of attention to court proceedings, too boring).

Not a stalker, and not a criminal mastermind.

And yet.

There was something about the man that caught Sherlock’s attention. Something… intangible. It niggled at the back of his mind in unoccupied moments – in the quiet of his flat when he reached for his mug of tea; when cold drizzle soaked into his hair while he hailed a cab; hovering around the edges of his awareness when he fell into the yawning gulf after solving a case.

Sherlock had never been able to bear not knowing all the answers.

*

He’s been back in London for several months when he’s once more reminded of his desperate pledge.

It is late at night and the only light comes from the streetlamp in front of his window, heavy blinds casting a striped pattern on the bare walls. There is nothing for him to do but wait until his mind is tired enough to succumb to sleep. Sitting on his bed he stares at nothing, letting the noise of occasional cars driving by wash over him.

His injuries have healed, except for his limp and his PTSD, but that doesn’t mean that he doesn’t still feel them. On good days he’s not too bothered, but it’s the bad days he’s worried about.

It’s been a bad day.

So when the pulling sensation in his gut rears its head, he doesn’t even notice at first. He’s too occupied with his own misery, the ache of his heart even stronger than the one in his shoulder. The pull only grows stronger as he sits there, an insistent feeling that tells him he has to be somewhere, right now, somewhere that isn’t here, and he needs to _move_.

Intellectually, he knows that the feeling is bullshit. He has nowhere to be, no obligations, especially not late at night, and no friends he should be visiting, no family expecting him to drop by.

But he’s bored, and lonely, and frankly out of his mind with cabin fever, so when the sensation doesn’t stop he grabs his cane, wraps himself up in a warm coat and leaves the flat.

Maybe his subconscious is telling him to get some fresh air.

Would do him good, no argument here.

Despite the late hour, London’s streets are far from deserted, and at first he aimlessly limps down the street, randomly turning corners and crossing the road. The longer he walks, though, the surer he gets. Soon he stops taking notice of the stilted awkwardness of his steps, or the occasional twinge of pain shooting through his shoulder. All he can pay attention to is that feeling in his gut, pulling him along. It grows stronger and stronger, until it’s joined by a rushing sound in his ear and his blood staring to boil in his veins.

It’s tunnel vision and adrenaline high rolled into one.

He rounds one final corner and the feeling suddenly stops; like a chord being stretched too far, it snaps, leaving him reeling for a long, disorienting moment.

When his mental faculties catch up with him he realizes he’s walked in on something, a mugging gone wrong, and the perp is already sprinting around a far street corner. For a second he feels the urge to pursue him, feels the army-issued instinct of _stop the bad guy!_ consume him.

But then he sees the woman who’s left behind crumble to the ground, and a much older instinct takes over.

John rushes to her side, a litany of “ _I’m a doctor, it’s okay, I’m a doctor,_ ” falling soothingly from his lips, but it’s already too late. Despite his best efforts – he’s a doctor, God dammit, he should be able to help – she bleeds out from a stab wound to the abdomen in under two minutes. All he can do is stem the blood flow and watch the life seep out of her eyes.

He knows then that his fever dream has been real after all, knows that this is what he’s supposed to do.

Bear witness.

When he gets home from the police station, he starts up his laptop and writes his first blog post.

_Today a woman bled out beneath my hands. It’s the first death I witnessed since Afghanistan…_

When he goes to bed hours later, it’s the first night since his medical discharge without nightmares. He doesn’t try to think about it too much in the cold light of day.

*

Scotland Yard was, at its core, an entirely useless institution. The only redeeming factor Sherlock could detect was the fact that it was somewhat of a warning to the criminally-inclined, discouraging a deluge of commonplace felonies and leaving only the desperate and the genius.

As matters stood, the Yard seemed to employ only the dullest of creatures and Sherlock was not above storming out of an apartment-turned-crime-scene in a huff. His brother would call it a temper tantrum, Sherlock preferred to think of it as an act of cleansing.

He paused briefly when he left the building, his assessing gaze sweeping across the assembled gawkers, and yes, regular like clockwork, there he was – Sherlock’s favorite onlooker.

Following a whim, he pulled out his phone and snapped a quick picture. If Lestrade couldn’t be trusted to elevate his eternal boredom, maybe this little mystery would keep him busy for a short time. At least until something truly puzzling crossed the detective inspector’s desk.

He sent the photo to Mycroft, no explanation attached, and hoped he wouldn’t be kept waiting out of spite – he _had_ recently insulted his brother, but surely he’d be over it by now?

Sherlock took one last look at his latest project before hailing a cab and speeding off to Baker Street.

*

 “How have you been doing, John?”

The voice of his therapist is supposed to be soothing, but it just puts him on edge.

“Yeah, good,” he says, but it’s too curt.

Silence descends upon them and John pretends it doesn’t bother him. He doesn’t exactly want to be there, and her razor-sharp gaze certainly doesn’t help.

Today, like most days, she breaks the silence first.

“I read your blog post.”

He glances up at that statement and is surprised at what he sees on her face. There’s an emotion etched into the curve of her lips, the lines around her eyes. It’s pride, and John is certain that it doesn’t belong there. He tries not to let that bother him either, and fails.

“Tell me about it,” she prompts.

John doesn’t know what else he could possibly talk about to fill another 55 minutes, so he does.

*

Sherlock couldn’t help but be miffed when, a week later, Mycroft still hadn’t gotten back to him. The man was, effectively, the personification of the British government, surely he must have found _something_ that would give Sherlock a place to start.

To make matters worse, he had a new case. Oh well, _Lestrade_ had a new case, but the man was as clueless as always, so one could reasonably argue that it was technically Sherlock’s case. In any event, it wasn’t the fact that he had a case that made him even more irritable than usual, but rather the aggravating circumstance that the stranger had failed to show up at the crime scene.

Sulking, he knew, rarely changed any particulars in his environment, but he felt entitled to his childish behavior. There he was, at the scene of a gruesome murder; it followed that the stranger should be here also, so why wasn’t he?

Throughout his investigation of the victim’s apartment his mind kept drifting back to the man – why hadn’t he shown up? Accident? Different hunting grounds? Out of town? Why now? Had Sherlock been too quick to ask Mycroft for help? Was _Mycroft_ the reason why his stranger wasn’t here tonight? Was the stranger dangerous enough for Mycroft to interfere? _Why did Sherlock care whether or not a random Londoner showed up to ogle a building in which a crime had taken place like a complete imbecile?_ That’s right, he didn’t.

He was merely annoyed that a potential mystery had slipped through his fingers, that was all.

*

It happens again, weeks later, at a diner not far from his shitty flat.

It’s late and John sits listlessly at his desk, proof-reading an academic article written by a former colleague of his when he really just wants to delete the entire thing and write it from scratch. Well, _research_ it from scratch. It’s been a while since he was active in the community, but even he can tell when he’s reading utter codswallop.

Halfway through the article he’s suddenly plagued by an acute craving for chips. It’s not that uncommon, and neither is giving in to his cravings.

If he doesn’t get in some extra exercise he’ll probably lose his girlish figure on top of his career, he thinks morosely as he pushes away from his desk. But chips will cheer him up, and he’s quite ready to drop the mental debate as to whether he should delete that comma or leave it where it is.

He finds the little diner as deserted and sleazy as always. If the chips weren’t so fantastic he’d never set a foot in here. He decidedly does not think about the state of the kitchen in which the chips are being prepared, he’ll sleep better that way.

Despite his best efforts to lay off the grease, he’s become somewhat of a regular, simply by virtue of being one of the few lost souls who keep wandering into this joint. But they know him, and know what he wants, and the bored-looking girl behind the counter tells him that his order will be ready shortly and then continues to ignore him – just the way he likes it.

He slides into a discolored vinyl booth, not willing to stand around on his bad leg when he knows that the cook is somewhat on the slow side. But that’s okay, it’s not like he has anything better to do.

Idly fiddling with his cane, he tries to get a look at the paperback the girl is reading, wondering if asking if the book is any good is worth the effort of engaging her in conversation. Probably not, so he lets the matter lie.

His eyes slide shut and he lets his head fall back against the backrest of the booth.

His food shouldn’t be more than a couple of minutes, now. If he felt so inclined he could probably make a study of it, time it to the second and calculate the average preparation time of chips.

That sounds about as useful as the medical article he’s in the process of editing.

The door to the diner opens, momentarily sending a chilling draught John’s way. He wrinkles his nose and lethargically glances at the newcomer, only perfunctorily interested in the fellow human being entering this fine establishment at such a late hour.

It’s a kid, fifteen at the most, dressed in the fashion of today – lose, impractical, and many-layered, – his face partly obscured by a hood.

There is something about this kid that doesn’t sit right with John, but he’s not sure if that is his instinct talking, or the media.

His shoulders stiffen, hand curling loosely around the shaft of his cane.

It’s his hesitation that costs a life.

In a flash the kid brandishes a gun, waving it around between John and the girl, shouting for them to stay put, to give him the money from the register. Terrified, the girl complies, and John tries to move subtly out of the booth, his mind racing – maybe he can get the kid’s attention focused on himself, away from the girl. The handgun is held in a vice-like grip that speaks of inexperience, if John’s smart about this he’ll be able to disarm the kid.

“Look, no one needs to get hurt,” John says in what he hopes is a soothing ‘listen here, son’ tone of voice, and slides a little further out of the booth.

The kid rounds on him, gun-arm thrown wide – it would give him a perfect opening if it weren’t for his bad leg.

“Shut up!”

John tightens his grip around the cane. This is not good. Too many emotions in the mix. He should have acted on his first instinct.

“Why don’t you let the girl go? I have a few tenners in my wallet, could even take you to a cash machine--”

“Do you think I’m stupid? They got CCTV there!”

The girl behind the counter uses the momentary distraction of the kid to grab her phone. John tries to subtly discourage her, to tell her with his eyes alone that it’s safer to let this play out – it’s the wrong move.

Later he won’t be able to tell if it was his fault that gave her action away, or if the kid would have focused his attention back on the girl regardless of John’s doing.

All he knows is that the scene explodes into chaos; shouting, a gunshot, a shriek of pain, and John finally makes it out of the booth, swinging his cane like a baton. He knocks the kid out cold, kicks the gun into a distant corner and rushes behind the counter, shouting for the cook to call an ambulance.

It doesn’t make a difference; she dies before they can so much as put her on a stretcher.

When John gets home he thinks long and hard about what kind of deal he’s made.

*

Sherlock recognized Mycroft’s singular footsteps on the stairs and was sure to turn his back before the man entered his living room, fiddling with his violin and pretending he didn’t know that his brother was there. It was petty, but then, so many interactions between them were. It would be a shame to break with tradition this late in the game.

Mycroft didn’t seem surprised at his behavior, simply stepped further into the room and dropped a file onto his cluttered coffee table, upsetting Sherlock’s carefully maintained ecosystem of newspaper clippings, dirty mugs that doubled as ash trays, and random items that he’d put there but couldn’t recall the purpose of.

When his brain registered the sound of paper hitting paper, he hesitated for another moment – should he retain his stubborn display of ignorance?

In the end his curiosity won out, like it always did.

He turned on his heels, bathrobe twirling dramatically around his long legs, and abandoned his violin.

Mycroft lifted a perfectly shaped eyebrow and smiled sardonically.

“How delightful, I didn’t know you were in,” he greeted, his voice reedy and mocking.

Sherlock ignored the jibe and picked up the file.

“John Hamish Watson,” he read out loud, trying out the name and mentally connecting it to the face he had seen so many times by now.

His brother, apparently, had no time for their usual chitchat.

“Do keep me appraised of your hobby, lest it turn troublesome.”

With that he was gone, but Sherlock hardly noticed. He had homework to do.

*

He’s been back in London for half a year and has born witness to almost two dozen deaths. Most of them murders, but also two suicides and five accidents.

More and more often his mind strays to the gun he keeps stashed away in his drawer. He’s clearly got the short end of this deal.

Once he even takes it out and gives it a thorough cleaning. Just in case.

That night he hears Death’s voice in his dreams, reminding him of his duty.

He doesn’t use the gun.

*

Sherlock was well known for his obsessive behavior. If he had a tricky problem to crack he didn’t sleep or eat for days, keeping his mind sharp with a variety of stimulants, and only allowing himself to crash when he had solved the puzzle.

It came as no surprise, then, that he obsessed over the stranger, this John Hamish Watson, especially since there was little else going on that could hold his interest. He read and reread the file, read it backwards and forwards and sideways and absorbed every scrap of information he could possibly gain from it.

A doctor, he thought to himself, and a military man. What had such a man possibly to gain from a crime scene? A crime scene that he had no real access to? Did he simply miss the excitement of getting shot at? How dull.

Then there was Watson’s personal blog – recommended by the therapist if Mycroft’s research was to be trusted, and it always was. But what a peculiar thing that blog had turned out to be! A private archive of death, rivaling the sensationalism of the _Daily Mail_.

It made him revisit one of his earlier theories – was Dr. Watson a criminal mastermind? A psychopath getting off on watching people die? He seemed to be able to weave in and out of crime scenes without leaving a trace, a veritable ghost – did he have no footprints, no fingerprints? Sherlock couldn’t explain how a man could witness so much death up close and not leave a single speck of evidence behind.

No, he couldn’t explain it, but he would damn well find out.

*

It doesn’t take long until John realizes that there are others like him.

There would be, he thinks, or he’d never get a break between is witnessing shifts.

He sometimes sees the others weaving in and out of London’s darkened streets, ducking into side-alleys, disappearing in a crowd of late-night clubbers, and just _knows_ that they are like him. They have a certain something about them, an aura, that he can sense when he spots them.

(It’s taken months for him to use the word ‘aura’ even in the privacy of his own head. He still feels like a complete nutter whenever he does.)

None of them ever approach him, but that suits him just fine.

Making a deal with Death is not something he wants to bond over.

*

The next time Sherlock ran into Dr. Watson it was a complete accident.

He’d been out and about, checking in on his Irregulars, slowly circling back to Baker Street and contemplating what to get for dinner, if anything at all. London during the early hours of the evening was always abuzz with movement and noise, crowds rolling through the city like the tide, and for once Sherlock was content with being borne along.

Lost in thought as he occasionally allowed himself to be, he did not immediately react to being jostled, it was a rather unavoidable occurrence during rush hour after all.

But then he heard a terse apology, followed by the clanking sound of a cane hitting the pavement between every step, and he whirled around, paying no attention to the passers-by he inconvenienced with his sudden change of course.

And truly, there he was, John Hamish Watson, limping down the street, his face barely masking the unease of being surrounded by so many people. PTSD, Sherlock recalled.

Their eyes met and the man’s pace, in turn, was slowed down by recognition, if the stiffening of his posture and the furrowing of his brow were anything to go by, and Sherlock was nothing if not an opportunist.

“Dr. Watson,” he greeted unhurriedly, as if they were the only people on the pavement. “I believe it is high time we had a chat.”

*

The thing with his Duty is that it makes finding a day job really hard.

It’s difficult enough to find somebody who’d hire a cripple, but already slacking off when he’s barely worked somewhere for a few weeks? He’s already been fired once for taking off – Death waits for nobody.

He’s getting seriously low on funds and knows that something will have to give eventually or he’ll end up bearing witness to his own demise. It’s not as funny a thought as it used to be.

*

Sherlock took Watson to Angelo’s, the one place that promised good food and a ready table whenever he happened to walk through the door.

Watson had been tense during the entire cab ride, not that Sherlock could exactly fault him for that, the man wasn’t stupid. Watson’s behavior had been suspicious to say the least, because he couldn’t know how perceptive Sherlock actually was or that he’d never deduced anything that hinted at Watson being a murderer. Maybe it had been a little unfair to let the man stew like that, but Sherlock thought it would make this interrogation somewhat easier, for an interrogation it would be, even if it involved Italian food.

Angelo was as courteous as always and promised them a meal on the house, apparently unable to detect that this wasn’t exactly a social outing. But Sherlock decided not to disabuse him of the notion – Watson’s state of wardrobe suggested that he was in a bit of a bind where money was concerned.

When they had ordered – Sherlock suspected that Watson only followed suit to avoid suspicion – the man finally broke the silence.

“So,” Watson said with a clipped voice and the flash of a fake smile, “you wanted to ask me if I had anything to do with these crimes.”

Sherlock raised an eyebrow. Well, he definitely hadn’t expected him to be so bold. And didn’t that pique his interest quicker than any cat-and-mouse game could have done?

“I know you don’t.”

Watson’s restrained expression was taken over by surprise. He certainly had an expressive face – it would make things easier for Sherlock.

“So what, then?”

“Tell me about your blog, Dr. Watson. Or do you prefer Captain?”

Before Watson could react in any way, Angelo interrupted them by serving their drinks. Sherlock tried not to sigh in annoyance. Such a nice offensive move, wasted.

Once Angelo had retreated, Watson took a sip of wine.

“Dr. Watson is fine,” he said, and put the wine glass down on a coaster. And then, because apparently Sherlock was in the company of a brave man, he continued: “I don’t get off on watching people die, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“I was leading up to it, yes.”

A quirk of lips, genuinely amused. Interesting.

“Your people skills are lacking,” Watson informed him.

“Are they?” 

Of course they were, people skills were dull.

“You work for the police?”

Now who was interrogating whom? But Sherlock didn’t mind sharing.

“I consult for them when they are at their wit’s end, which is always.”

Another amused smirk. Just for a second, then it turned sour and Watson took another small sip of wine. A distraction, Sherlock deduced, not a problem.

“I don’t go out looking for them,” Watson said, and stared at the dark red drink in his glass. “I’m told that writing about it will make me feel better.” 

“A coincidence. You really want me to believe that?”

“I didn’t say coincidence,” he replied, finally looking up and meeting his gaze. For a second, Sherlock was spell-bound by the resignation he saw there.

“Then what are you saying, Dr. Watson?”

“Death… finds me.”

*

He’s getting really good at evading the police.

It takes about three incidents until they call him Bad Luck Charm at the Yard, although he’s sure that they secretly think he’s had something to do with all those incidents, that he’s planned it, somehow. There is no such thing as coincidence after all, and John’s never been so glad for eye witnesses and CCTV before.

It’s after he gets that nickname that he decides he needs to stay in the shadows.

He starts to experiment with distances – does he actually have to watch the life leaving their eyes? Do the victims need to see him in turn or is it enough when he witnesses it all from afar?

He becomes good at what he does, streamlines his Duty, falls into something of a high-risk routine.

One thing he finds is that no matter how often he bears witness, it never gets easier.

Maybe that’s the whole point.

*

It became somewhat of a routine.

Whenever their paths crossed at a crime scene, they would grab a cup of coffee afterwards, provided, of course, that Sherlock was done with his consultation. Neither of them had planned it that way, though Sherlock was hardly displeased with this development. When ‘Dr. Watson’ soon became ‘John’, the detective found that he didn’t mind their continued encounters.

At first he had simply decided to make absolutely sure that John was no serial killer – Lestrade would never forgive him if he were to make such a blunder. And he wasn’t, that much Sherlock could tell. There was something the man held back, some secret that seemed to hover between them at all times, but Sherlock was certain that it wasn’t a secret of the homicidal sort.

But it nagged at him, this secret, he was itching to peel back John’s layers to find out more. At the same time, it puzzled him that such an ordinary man could draw and retain his attention. That alone was a mystery in and of itself, and Sherlock was determined to get to the bottom of it.

*

Survivor’s guilt isn’t something he’s picked up in Afghanistan. That one comes after. It’s a sickness, dragging him down, and John hates that he is never able to help these people, that all he can do is watch them die.

He became a doctor for a reason, and it’s not because he looks dashing in a white coat.

To keep himself busy (and to counteract this constant feeling of self-hatred that churns in his gut), he starts doing some follow-ups. Lingers at crime scenes, follows the news reports, attends funerals.

He knows he’s being reckless, that soon he’ll get locked up for his troubles, especially since he keeps writing those damn blog posts – it’s become a compulsion, he just can’t stop.

*

It had taken Sherlock a few months until he had convinced John to join him during his consultations. John was a doctor and army-trained, which made him a useful asset – or so Sherlock had argued. In all honesty, he had wanted to observe the man up close when confronted with one of those crimes he liked to write about. Observe the minute changes of his expression, his posture, and, admittedly, if he’d give anything away. Anything _incriminating_.

Sherlock highly doubted it, but apart from poking a stick at the problem he’d tried everything in his arsenal, and John still hadn’t budged. Taking him to an active investigation seemed the best way to metaphorically poke him, although Sherlock wasn’t above literally poking John, either. Had done so, on occasion, for science, and gotten slapped for the impertinence.

However, the only reaction he got when John finally came along was sorrow – too raw to be faked – and a piece of celebrity gossip that ended up solving the case, of all things.

He didn’t know whether he should feel offended that John had been vital in cracking the problem, or secretly pleased that the man continued to surprise him.

After that it seemed only natural that he asked John to move into his spare room at Baker Street.

*

When he meets Sherlock Holmes, he wonders if Death put him in his path to reward him for his service.

The man is different from anybody he’s ever met, and that alone makes John unable to forget him. At first he’s only seen the consulting detective at crime scenes, like a plain-clothes policeman, or so he’s thought in the beginning. The man’s a regal sight to behold, certainly, but John only realizes how much trouble he’s in when the man drags him to dinner.

Trying to keep his secret from Sherlock Holmes will be the most difficult thing he’ll ever do in his life.

When his therapist, with her sharp eyes and even sharper mind, asks what troubles him, the words spill out of his mouth without his assistance and he tells her all about meeting Sherlock Holmes.

The smile she offers him when he finishes his tale is tinged with satisfaction, and John can’t shake the feeling of unease that so often overtakes him in her presence.

*

It had happened years ago and he didn’t think about it very often anymore. Certainly not since he’d met John.

Only sometimes, when he felt particularly slow and the nicotine patches just didn’t cut it anymore, when the slumbering _need_ reared its head in the privacy of his own head, securely locked inside so John wouldn’t see, only then did he allow himself to remember.

Remember a time when the dull monotony of human existence had been too much, when the inside of his elbow had been littered with track marks, when the carefully measured doses had become less carefully measured, then more frequent, his only absolution, when, eventually, one fix had turned into one too many.

Taking his own life had been an accident, but not a surprise.

Even Death coming to him with her Commission had not been enough to faze him. Not until after he’d surfaced from _agonynoneedmorepleaseithurtsi’llgiveyouanythingjustonemore **please**_. The task she had given him was fitting in its irony – punish those who dared to do Death’s work in her stead.

But Sherlock didn’t mind.

It was his penance.


End file.
